Madison times. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1884-1???, 1887-05-14


but hear. The "glittering eve" has
looked into his soul. and the tumuit
and JOY and uproar OF tho world recede.
become ia ut and far-a dance of shad-
Ows to spectral music; the buXom. Tud-
dy bride herself mere Unsuostantial
phantom. AMI this voyage into the ua-
known. the startling. important reality.
No wonder that after he had heard it
He went like one that had been stunned,
And is Of sense foriorn;
4 sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrows morn.
Sadder and wiser. Is Dante was af-
ter he had finished the ''Divina Com
media As the Shakespeare that wrote
Lear. was Sadder aud wiser than the
Shakespeare that wrote Romeo and
Juliet" But OF all this mystical mean
ing the artist gave no hint. for the
sweet, little. childish morsal III the
end
lie prayeth best who luveth Des.,
All things, both great and small
For the great God |ho lOveth US
He made anI lUyeth all
is merely a device TO bring the reader
back into the world of SeEse. The
poet places the under world world
of new forces-squarely before YOU.
You enter it. and then are set back in
your own ..cOuntree" The story is
told by one who has been there. II is
true. The effect is produced by num-
berless cumulative touches. all of which.
in the true ballad manner. are subordin-
novelty and power that We feel in hear
ing it some OF the strange uneasiness
that affects animals Oh the approach OF
an eclipse. Experience fails. All our
knowledge we supposed was based on
experience. Here is new sort of
knowledge not based on experience.
There is nothing comparable 10 the
Ancient Mariner. unless il be the ter
rOr OF certain strins of music. Some
thing elemental throbs and trembles
within us-the solid ground of expert
ence may yawn and let Us down 10 un-
known depths. where the tirmness of
the human soul is naught where cour-
age is dissolved, and will is powerless.
The ideal quality of the Ancient Mar
iner" is shown by the fact that it can
not be illustrated. Dore, master of
gloom, of the sinister perspective of
black masses, is powerless to represent
the phantom ship. His prints above
Colleridge's verse merely spoil the
lines. destroy the illusion. or rather
throw it up into the real world of bark
rugged ships with wooden masts and
figure heads. solid, and displacing so
many tons. The Ancient Mariner" is
the only poem which eau never be il
lustrated. Coleridge called ! painting
'the intermediate something between
thought and ! thing bat this poem
lies on the other side oi thought, IN
the region of the sub conscious.
In thus stepping boldly outside the
world of the senses Coierdge was a
great poet, creator. an .deaiist- No
poet now attempts 10 DO more than
describe what he has seen or heard.
perhaps to moralize on it, or to invest
il with q certain reiat on 10 the splritu-
al world. In word, modern poets
are realistic. fancifui and charming,
perhaps, but always purposive. Shell
lev. too. possesses this power. but Col
.eridge made By far the easier fight.
Shelley has most need OF artificial sup
ports, deals in negat!ons-shadowleSs,
inessenlial figures floating in dim va
por-the conventional apparatus of the
ghostly world. The number of adjec-
tives beginning in un and dis that Shell
lev uses is remarkable. But Collerldge
places the scene square before you-no
dim vapors pass across the foreground.
The phantom ship drives across the
sun, voU see that it is skeleton ship
And s.Aizht the sun was fecked with bsrk
Heavens mother send us grace!
ASH through a dungeon crate he peefed,
With broad and burning face.
ThJ r>et SEXES instnc'lveiy on the
striking points. - gOOl narrator
does in describing what h. has seen.
But the sense of an underlying, allper
suasive. mysterious force = a. eminen
in the real ooaan where me mariner
ship floats idly as in the vast. inter
stellar spaces whore Queen Nab :akei
the spirit of Ianihe. More 80. indeed
Coleridge places the supernaturs
world apart-he does not disclose it
l.-.-... H. ....r,,,.r.i n. Do. No